Internet authentication is currently based on passwords for authentication, even though passwords and password systems are insecure, easy to crack, guess, and subvert. Password security relies on 1) users remembering their password and 2) attackers not gaining access to the password. Since more secure passwords are hard to remember, common passwords like “12345” are used by huge percentages of the users on the Internet. Other solutions have been tried to increase the security of the system including One Time Passwords (OTP), which use an out of band method (typically the user typing in a code or a setup process taken before the token generator is shipped) to create one time tokens that are time based. Until recently OTPs have been generated by hardware tokens and were expensive to supply to users. Recent improvements have allows OTP to be distributed as software applications on mobile devices which are initialized by the user filling out some seed numbers. Although OTP provide protections from guessable passwords and brute force attacks they are still susceptible to a number of attacks like being re-used within the window and stolen (if the seed material is stolen the OTP can be generated by anyone). Another stronger security option is Public Key Infrastructures (PKI) which rely on public/private key pairs which is a huge benefit as the “secret” data (i.e. the private key) never leaves the user's control; but PKI systems are typically so complicated to implement that they are only used in huge organizations and cause numerous overhead problems like key revocation, provisioning each user, and managing keys when they expire etc.
In addition to increasing the security of authentication a better authentication system should make it easier for the user. Common security improvements like OTP, PKI, using additional security questions, making passwords longer, etc. make it more complicated on the user. Ideally, users would both be able to use the system in a simplified manner but would also be given control over their authentication data to prevent fraud and to select different strengths of authentication based on their own preferences. With the expanded capabilities of smart phones and other user devices, it is now possible to transfer session/authentication data between channels, for example between the browser and the smart phone, this can enable stronger security authentication.